He Really Would've Hated That Epitaph
by Manchester
Summary: It's Halloween. It's Spike. Based on my earlier stories, care to guess about what comes next for that disliked vampire?
1. Chapter 1

*It's going to be one of _those_ nights,* Spike grouchily thought to himself as he grabbed the nearest coat at hand while leaving the crypt where he and Drusilla had been residing the last few weeks, up until this evening's holiday on October thirty-first. Ordinarily, the English vampire would've been quite content to stay inside for the entire human celebration, just like all those other demons in Sunnydale who also found everything about Halloween to be utterly idiotic and refused to show their misshapen faces on the single time of the year when the Hellmouth was at its quietest.

However, Spike had changed his mind just a minute ago when a minion had shown up at the crypt and nervously informed the feared pair who'd once been half of the Scourge of Europe that according to rumor, the Slayer and her friends would be accompanying several groups of children out trick-or-treating tonight. This had sufficiently intrigued Spike so that he'd decided to see for himself first-hand the truth of this gossip. Either way, a fanged monster would have another chance at finishing off one more pestiferous Slayer or more likely finding out this was untrue and instead wind up bringing back to Dru a nice, juicy youngster dressed in their child's fantasy costume.

Maybe that latter outcome would bring Dru out of her recent terrified mood. She'd been cowering in a corner of the crypt ever since last night, when Spike had come back from wandering through Sunnydale then on his usual search for fresh blood. There'd seemingly been no reason at all for this sudden and absolute panic shown by the insane vampiress. Spike's attempts to find out what was wrong quickly changed to irritated exasperation when Dru refused to speak to him and only whimpered even louder plus trying to cram herself through the stones making up the crypt corner. Eventually going off in his own bad temper, Spike had absently tossed by the entrance to their underground chamber his sole trophy of an otherwise unsuccessful hunt tonight in the California city.

Mind you, he'd almost been lucky in finding someone to kill and drain to the very last drop of delicious hemoglobin, but that damn bloke going inside the building at Sunnydale's business district had closed the rear shop door behind them without even knowing who'd been silently slipping down the dark alley into their direction. A very annoyed Spike had noted then that lying on the asphalt by the shut door was a single wooden crate. In an impulsive burst of spite, the vampire kicked this box hard enough to send it sailing through the air to smash against the opposite alley wall. The crate had naturally shattered to pieces, causing its contents to then fall onto the ground.

Spike hadn't bothered paying attention to this. Rather, he'd been hopefully watching the door, in case whoever in there had heard that commotion and consequently came out to see what was going on. That was the only way Spike could make up for missing his earlier chance at casual murder, since from the mystical feel that place was sending to the demon right now, there were some kind of protective magic wards on the bloody building. Whoever had set those wards up, a witch or wizard or other kind of mage, they'd really known their job, and Spike had no hope of getting past these protections unless his latest happy meal decided to waltz out of there on their own…

After a few more impatient minutes when this didn't occur, Spike resigned himself to giving it all up as a lost cause. Sending one last fulminating glare at the door which remained completely shut despite his best nasty look, Spike stomped with angry strides down the alley. A few steps into this, he came across the contents of the crate Spike had just destroyed. Without even bothering to stop, Spike stooped to snatch up and then throw over his shoulder the men's coat which had been inside the box. Straightening to keep one finger hooked into the hood of the coat, Spike maliciously muttered to nobody in particular, "Aye, I deserve a wee bit of plunder for that cockup, eh?"

In his recently-rented costume shop, Ethan Rayne continued to warily eye the back door of the place chosen to hold the Janus ceremony which would bring lovely chaos throughout the entire town of Sunnydale tomorrow night. Now, however, he was decidedly _not_ going to investigate whatever was happening in the alley beyond this portal. The Boca del Infierno had enough of an evil reputation to make Ethan almost choose not to pull the most anarchic prank of his entire life, but as long as he felt he could get away with it, this Chaos mage would still have as much fun here as possible, no matter what. Nonetheless, all of his instincts were telling Ethan that stepping past both the door and his protective wards into the dark alley was a supremely bad idea.

Glancing around the room filled with numerous costumes, Ethan eventually shrugged in his passive acceptance. It was only one or two costumes in the last remaining crate outside, after all. True, he couldn't remember exactly what they were, but these specific garments were almost certainly surpassed in potential power or capacity for amusement by the ones already set up for display and sale in this room. So he simply might as well as write them off as lost, stolen, or damaged stock. It'd be best to wait until daylight to see if the costumes could be recovered. Or, come to think of it, if they were truly gone and being worn on Halloween night by whoever had taken them, this Chaos-imbued clothing would yet change those unfortunates into a nice bit of random mischief. That'd quite please Janus, which was the whole point, wasn't it?

* * *

Twenty-four hours later in the crypt, Spike paused to remember just how he'd come across the atypical item of clothing the vampire was presently donning. His usual prized leather jacket, the reward for killing that New York Slayer back in '77, was away at a Sunnydale dry cleaners, so when Spike had automatically reached for this, the only coat on hand was his newest souvenir which was now fully covering the vampire's torso along with the hood brought forward to envelope his head. Spike looked down at this coat, and he grimaced at how quite dreadful it looked on him at this moment. For one thing, it damn well wasn't his color-

Hold on… A stray thought had just struck Spike, and he was liking it better and better. If he really did find that blonde bint with her absurd name of Buffy tonight, it'd take her at least a second or two to recognize him dressed up so differently as he was from his usual style. Going up against a Slayer, you had to take every advantage of things like that, and a disguised Spike was quite happy to do so. Nobody would care - or more important, dare - to mention the frankly unusual way the vampire would look tonight, not when Spike would have a _trio_ of Slayers under his belt. Yes, that'd definitely put him past the poofter for once and all. Angelus, hah! From now on, whenever they mentioned the most evil vampire around, it'd be by the name of William the Bloody!

All right, then, time to be off. Tugging his coat into a better fit, Spike tossed over his shoulder while leaving, "Ta, Dru. See you later, and when I tell you how that soddin' Slayer died, you better be over your attack of the vapors! It's getting boring, and that's not something to make me happy, when I'll be the first of our kind to go three for three!"

In her huddled position at the crypt corner, Drusilla just crammed her fists into her mouth, and she silently wept.

* * *

An hour or so later, Spike was beginning to regret his boastful words. He'd been searching through the whole bloody town during their stupid attempts to have fun during Halloween, and Spike couldn't find a single trace of that damn Slayer! The only good thing so far was that the rest of those buggers of the demonic persuasion hadn't stuck a toe out of their lairs tonight, allowing Spike to conduct his discreet exploration while looking like such a prat. It meant so far, none of his fellow creatures of the night had found about this but this could change at any moment. The question was, how much longer could it go on until Spike admitted defeat and slinked back to their crypt? At least Dru would stay quiet-

Elsewhere in a costume shop, a triumphant voice shouted, "JANUS!"

From where he was walking through the middle of an empty parking lot outside a shut-down supermarket, Spike instantly halted in his tracks. Standing there motionless, the vampire's eyelids slammed shut. A few seconds afterwards, he began to sway to and fro, as if he would collapse to the ground at any time now. Otherwise, there seemed to be no other sign of the gigantic struggle Spike was now waging inside his mind.

The only reason why this undead Englishman hadn't immediately turned into his costume was something which had never occurred to the Chaos mage responsible for it all. Ethan Rayne had based his entire scheme on _humans_ dressing up in the Halloween outfits he'd earlier instilled with the ability to possess their wearers. Except, a vampire was basically a demonic entity already possessing the corpse of a now-deceased human.

How long it took, Spike never found out. In the end, he overcame the intruder who'd dared to try to invade and take over the body which Spike had previously claimed back in Victorian times. This other possession was ruthlessly snuffed out of existence, leaving behind a satisfied William the Bloody in sole occupancy of his mind. Heaving an actual sigh of relief that once again he'd given his latest foe a right setting-to, Spike opened his eyes…and this vampire now saw who was now facing him in a silent semi-circle in the parking lot.

They consisted of at minimum several dozen individuals from all sorts of 20th Century popular media: movies, television, computer games, comic books, et cetera. Yet, each and every one of them were carrying a weapon of some kind which was unique to those persons, and these same devices shared a mutual level of vast potential destruction. All through the crowd lined up in front of Spike, these costumed characters now lifted, pointed, and aimed ray guns, magic wands, green rings, mini-guns, and so many others from page and screen to unwaveringly target Spike in the middle of his orange parka-clad chest.

His eyes widening in sheer shock, Spike glanced down at the coat he'd earlier stolen from outside Ethan's shop without even having a chance to realize just who was supposed to wear it. Before Spike could start to open his mouth in a last futile protest, his newfound enemies strangely drawn to where that guy wearing a hooded coat which was somehow pissing them off beyond all measure at once let loose their weapons at full blast toward Spike.

Who, naturally, disintegrated without leaving a single molecule behind. The same shockwave from all the uncanny weapons going off also rocked the entire city of Sunnydale. This ground vibration included the cemetery crypt where Drusilla still in her corner now took her hands away from her mouth to sadly intone, "They killed Kenny!…You bastards!"


	2. Chapter 2

_Blink._

Spike violently cringed to no avail against what had just happened to him what seemed only a second ago. Then, he'd found himself tonight on Halloween in the middle of Sunnydale surrounded by a couple dozen very bizarre blokes pointing equally unusual weapons at this vampire, and right after, they'd all shot him with enough force to disintegrate Spike, down to the very last bleached blond hair. Oh, yes, Spike definitely remembered that of his complete and utter destruction, no matter how much he didn't want to. So…why the hell was he back again in one piece and somewhere else in this damn American city?

Making another cautious check of his continuing solidity by giving a few absent pats with one hand against the front of the orange hoodie he'd acquired by sheer accident last night and was wearing at this moment, a very baffled Spike peered around at his new location. He was alone now in one of Sunnydale's dark alleys which looked a wee bit familiar. All right, that gave him the chance to contemplate in some decent peace and quiet about the latest bout of weirdness. It appeared the Hellmouth was having a particularly odd All-Hallows holiday this evening. This left him at somewhat of a loss on whether to investigate further, or just shrug and instead try to do what he'd decided earlier tonight, finding and snacking on the Slayer.

Pulling off the hood of his coat to let it lie against his upper back, Spike thoughtfully rubbed his exposed chin. As a rule, he didn't care all that much about the usual strangeness in Sunnydale unless it directly affected him and Dru by putting them at risk in some way. Well, getting recently blasted to less than dust beyond any doubt counted as a risk, but seeing how Spike had no idea just why it'd happened in the first place or how he'd wound up again intact and still the most feared vampire in town, the sensible thing to do now was to nip back to his insane lover and lie low in their crypt for a while. Afterwards, once he was sure things had quieted down in this damned place, the English demon would find out exactly who should pay in agonized screams and an eventual horrific death for such an offense against William the Bloody.

Unfortunately, Spike wasn't going to be let off _that_ easy tonight.

Considering how in the South Park cartoon series that Kenny McCormick apparently possessed the ability to reincarnate himself after every one of this little boy's numerous idiotic deaths, it's no wonder the Chaos magic set free in Sunnydale tonight also gave an unaware Spike the vampire this self-same knack of returning to his previous level of existence. However, there included in that abrupt revival a rather important detail regarding the fact Spike was _still_ wearing the famous orange parka he'd unwittingly donned without knowing the grisly fates awaiting whoever dared to put on Kenny's coat.

Case in point…

The sudden sound of fluttering wings overhead was heard by Spike as he strode down the alley in the direction of the crypt which was his destination. Glancing up at what he assumed to be some pigeon or other bird disturbed from their nest by his presence, Spike froze in his tracks to gape with abrupt shock at what was instead hovering there in mid-air a mere yard or so above and beyond the vampire.

Something which only minutes ago had been a plush toy as an accessory to a young girl's X-men costume, Lockheed the dragon now balefully glared down at someone this little flying beast instinctively sensed was a deadly danger to his mistress. Opening his fanged mouth, the purple dragon blew a blast of searing fire right at Spike. With comic-book speed, these flames reduced Spike to a pile of ash before he could even react, much less try to escape his doom.

Giving a quite satisfied snort, Lockheed flew off to find Kitty Pryde in what appeared to be yet another unexpected adventure for this mutant superheroine and her alien pet.

* * *

In their crypt, Drusilla still seated in one corner of the underground space again announced, "He killed Kenny! You winged bastard!"

* * *

_Blink._

Spike flinched at not just being burned to death, but in also being revived simultaneously with the sound of a magnificent trumpet crescendo battering at his ears. Spinning around on the sidewalk to gawk at where this music was coming from seemingly nowhere, Spike missed the keen sword edge slashing horizontally from behind the vampire. This weapon didn't slow down the slightest in decapitating Spike, nor did it stop moving when its latest victim turned into dust. Instead, Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham continued with their spirited duel in a Sunnydale street, accompanied by Erich Wolfgang Korngold's majestic score and two looming shadows battling together while being projected on the blank building wall opposite.

* * *

Drusilla indignantly declared, "He killed Kenny! You bastard in tights!" After saying this, though, the undead woman in her tattered white dress began to hum along to the 1938 Warner Brothers movie.

* * *

_Blink._

Throwing up his hands in absolute panic to shield his face, Spike waited in growing terror at whatever was going to fatally happen to him now. When nothing actually occurred for several seconds, the vampire felt his dread subside a bit, enough for him to lower his hands. This was done just in time for a runaway hoverboard from the Back to the Future series moving at least 300 mph after the failure of its safety interlocks nailed Spike right between the eyes.

* * *

Rolling her own eyes in genuine annoyance, Drusilla got up from the corner while muttering under her nonexistent breath, "He killed Kenny! You time-traveling bastard!"

* * *

_Blink._

Frantically crouching down while performing matching frenzied gestures with his hands to protect his entire body, Spike finished off his ridiculous posture by hopping around in a full circle to defend himself from his next ludicrous opponent. Who, for some reason, wasn't showing up…

Straightening from his cowering stance, Spike shot a very alarmed look around in all directions at the deserted Sunnydale High football field, before eventually letting out a sigh of relief. Good, nobody had seen him do that-

Scampering from the nearest goal zone, three members of the Sciuridae family stopped in front of Spike, rose to their hind legs, and then Alvin, Simon and Theodore serenaded the vampire with their highest-pitched voices, "We wish you a merry Halloweeeeeeeen!"

An opera singer hitting the exact note can shatter a wine glass without any trouble. The trio of warbling chipmunks didn't have any difficulty either in making Spike's head explode.

* * *

Wrenching off the cupboard door to the crypt's liquor cabinet with one casual sweep of her arm, Drusilla yanked from in there a bottle of twenty-year aged Scotch, popped off the cap with a flick of her thumb, and next she lifted the container to her mouth and drained the entire contents in a single chug. Letting out an indecorous belch, the Victorian vampire now said with real loathing in her tone, "They killed Kenny! You squeaky bastards!"

* * *

_Blink._

Caught helplessly in the grip of two creatures, both far stronger than a vampire and even more hungry for blood, Spike underwent a tug-of-war between an Alien and a Predator until at last instantly puffing into dust after being torn in two by those film monsters.

* * *

Drusilla was well into the rhythm now. One after the other, the remaining liquor bottles were seized, opened, and downed for her to then say with growing exasperation various reworkings of the now-familiar phrase, finished off by Drusilla throwing over her shoulder the empty bottle to smash into smithereens on the far crypt wall.

* * *

_Blink._

A thunderous crash came from behind Spike, followed immediately by a wave of liquid which knocked the vampire flat onto his face in the fast-food parking lot. Trying to get back on his feet, Spike was stuck in the gluey substance entirely covering him which seemed to be a mixture of clear and yellowish fluid. His shoulders were then grabbed by two strong hands that pulled him up and easily held Spike dangling off the ground in their grip. Looking right into Ronald McDonalds' maniac expression, a scared stiff vampire dripping in the result of Humpty-Dumpty falling off the building next door then heard from the gloating clown, "You deserve a break today! We cook it all for you at McDonalds'!"

Spike was then tossed onto an oversized circular piece of bread, where the still-immobile vampire had a sheet of cheese draped over him, plus another bread layer as the top. Muffled screams now came from where Spike had just realized his future as the largest ever Egg McMuffin.

* * *

"He killed Kenny! You Madison Avenue shill bastard!"

* * *

And so it went for the rest of the night, with even Rupert Giles on his way to Ethan Rayne's costume shop slamming on the brakes of his car when a somewhat recognizable figure in an orange anorak ran across the street ahead while being overtaken by the pursuing huge boulder from an iconic Harrison Ford movie.

* * *

"Bugger _this._"

* * *

Staggering inside their crypt at last when a Janus statuette was finally destroyed, Spike found in there not his dearly yearned-for Drusilla to give him sympathy and patch up his wounds, but rather a thoroughly trashed interior without any sign of his paramour. Pinned in between the mortar of the wall stones with one of his own personal railroad spikes was Miss Edith, Dru's beloved doll. Also attached to the pointed iron rod was a note written in a familiar feminine hand:

_Spike:_

_If you're reading this, you managed to survive all the ridiculous consequences tonight which I also shared - __every single one of them__ - because of my seer powers. For some reason, the sheer stupidity I was forced to witness for the last several hours has not only restored my sanity but it permanently ended any affection towards you that I previously possessed. I'm leaving for England, where I'll retire to overwhelming dullness by changing my name, thralling someone from the local hospital to provide the blood I need, opening an after-hours teashop for the demonic crowd, and breeding spaniels in my spare time._

_If you ever think of searching for me and succeed in it, rest assured that I'll then do things to you which will make even Angelus have nightmares beyond belief._

_Sincerely,_

_Belinda Chowdringham (formerly Drusilla the Mad)_


End file.
